The Rich and the Dead

December 16, 2013
Miami Beach’s social elite populate Spector’s exciting debut, a crime novel involving time travel. On New Year’s Day 2015, 12 rich and powerful philanthropists, members of the secretive Janus Society, are shot, execution style, on Florida’s Star Island. Hotshot police detective Lila Day takes on the shocking case, but her failure to bring the Star Island killer to justice destroys her career. When reclusive billionaire Teddy Hawkins gives Lila the chance, three years later, to go back in time to solve the case, she has nothing to lose. The only caveat is that Lila must not try to stop the murders, she can only attempt to determine the killer’s identity. Posing as ultra-wealthy socialite Camilla Dayton, Lila mingles with the future victims in the fall of 2014 to determine how and why they were targeted. In a race against time and her own growing feelings for some of the doomed Janus Society members, Lila finds lust, jealousy, greed—and much more—in this well-crafted thriller.

January 15, 2014
Given the chance to go back in time to catch a murderer, would you risk it? Even knowing that you couldn't save the victims? Three years ago on New Year's Eve, 12 fabulously wealthy members of the Miami Beach jet set were assassinated. The crime scene: a glamorous mansion on Star Island. Mode of death: single bullet wound to the forehead. Suspects: plenty of shifty characters. The lead detective: Lila Day. The killer: still at large. Coincidentally, Dec. 31, 2014, also marked the disappearance of the Janus Society. Devoted to supporting charitable organizations, the Society had always announced the recipient of its annual grant each New Year's Day. But three years have passed without a word. Before the Star Island Massacre, Lila was the golden child on Miami's police force, famous for her preternatural ability to sniff out a criminal. The unsolved case, however, has disgraced Lila, who soon finds herself dismissed not only from the police force, but also from her latest job as a security officer for a seamy hotel. Down and out, she has little to lose when Teddy Hawkins, tech mogul and billionaire, hires her to solve the mystery. First, she has to overcome her doubts about time travel. Teddy sets her up with a meticulously crafted alias as newly divorced socialite Camilla Dayton. He also provides a thoroughly researched dossier on every victim and suspect. Quickly absorbed into the Miami Beach party scene, populated with shady art dealers, former reality show starlets and pushy real estate agents, Lila also finds what she never expected: love with the mysterious Dylan Rhodes. The first in a series professionally packaged by the branding experts behind Gossip Girls, Pretty Little Liars, etc., Spector's debut establishes an engaging, time-traveling heroine. With more drama than ratiocination, this is a breezy, light detective novel.

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March 1, 2014

In January 2015, someone wiped out a secret society of philanthropists in the Star Island massacre. Det. Lila Day's failure to solve the case ruined her career. Fast forward to 2018. After being fired from her crappy job as a hotel security guard, Lila receives a bizarre offer from the billionaire who owned the Florida mansion where the murders took place: he wants her to rewind, travel back to 2014, and identify the killer. After some initial misgivings, Lila accepts the challenge and assumes an alias as a wealthy divorcee. She then infiltrates Star Island's high society and races against time to try to crack the case. Time travel is complex, though, and Lila struggles to follow the rules, including not meeting her past self and not trying to save anyone. VERDICT This debut novel is the first in a new crime/time travel series; despite its banal title, it's a fresh and clever contribution to the modern female sleuth genre. It's also fun to entertain the notion that time travel is only four years away. However, this reviewer, a time travel newbie, had to work hard to suspend her disbelief. [Library marketing.]--Samantha Gust, Niagara Univ. Lib., NY

Copyright 2014 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

January 1, 2014
On New Year's Day, 2015, all 12 members, but only the members, of the Janus Society, an exclusive, secretive philanthropic club, convened at a member's gated villa on Star Island, accessible only by boat from Miami Beach. All were murdered, execution style, creating a locked-room mystery that stumped Miami's best detective, Lila Day. Three years later, in 2018, the dispirited and discredited Lila is fired from her hotel-security job. She is ripe for taking an offer from Teddy Hawkins, a billionaire inventor, to reopen the Janus casebut with a twist. Hawkins, a friend of the victims, pays her to use his newly invented time machine to travel back in time to live among the victims in the months before the murders, hoping that she will be able to identify the killer before he kills. And so Lila Day becomes Camilla Dayton, a rich newcomer to the Miami moneyed set. Fancy cars, posh pool parties, and glittering nightlife are the veneer shielding the sinister purpose of the Janus Society. Although the means for solving the crime seems forced, the combination of mystery, evil, glamour, and light science fiction makes for an engrossing series debut.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2014, American Library Association.)